As Jose Mourinho's Manchester United players trudged back into the visitors' dressing room at Ewood Park on Sunday following their 2-1 FA Cup fifth-round win over Blackburn Rovers, there would have been little thought of the squad being 12 games from greatness.
The immediate concerns would have been on switching the focus to Wednesday's Europa League round-of-32 second-leg against St Etienne in France and digesting the prospect of an FA Cup quarterfinal trip to Chelsea next month.
The EFL Cup final against Southampton may have been just a week away following the full-time whistle at Blackburn, but such is United's workload right now, even a trip to Wembley has to go onto the back-burner until it becomes the most important game by virtue of being the next one.